Red Herring ✔️

10. Flames

*Unedited* 

There was a note on her windshield which she snatched up before Amelia noticed. Unsurprisingly, Christian was the one who tucked it there with his phone number on it and instructions to come over to his house through the back yard after dark. Her heart raced of its own accord when she read the note again in the safety and privacy of her bedroom. Her stomach tightened like a vice, inhibiting her ability to eat much of anything although Felecia made her world class chicken parm. She waited for Fe to occupy herself giving the kids a bath in the bathroom as a good time to escape out the back door. As a coverup, Mazie closed her bedroom door and turned up the volume on her TV to make Fe think she was hiding away in her bed under the covers.

She trekked through the dark and the wet grass to Christian's backyard. Mazie folded her oversized sweater over her white long sleeve t-shirt to keep out the night chill and maybe something else too.

It wasn't hard to locate Christian because he was starting a fire close to the back porch. Like herself, he covered his head with a black wool hat.

When he heard her approach, Christian stopped tending to the fire, and instead, watched her come closer, lighting a warm fire in her belly which bloomed deliciously in her chest.

"Hey, stranger," she greeted quietly.

Christian shot her his classic smirk. "We shared a dressing room. That makes us the opposite of strangers."

Mazie strolled closer until the edges of the light of the fire touched her face. "Except you didn't have the balls to finish taking my pants off."

Christian laughed, motioning for her to sit with him on one of the two Adirondack outdoor chairs facing the fire. "I was trying to be a gentleman."

"How chivalrous of you," she commented as she took a seat beside him. The wood was cool beneath her backside unlike the fire that warmed her exposed skin.

"You got my note," he said, also sliding into a chair.

"I'm here, aren't I?" She said sarcastically.

Christian jumped right in now that they had some privacy instead of getting distracted in a mall dressing room. "Fill me in on what happened with Demi."

Mazie wrapped her arms around her torso and angled close to the fire for warmth. "How'd you hear about that?"

"My friend Matt is in your English class. He knows I was concerned about Demi. So he told me was you did," Christian informed her.

"Looking back on it now, it might have been stupid to do that. But I saw and opportunity and just jumped on it."

Christian relaxed in his chair, as chill as could be, as if it weren't roughly forty degrees outside. "I would have done that too," he reassured her.

"So I take her to the bathroom instead of the office. She says she's going to be sick, but she doesn't throw up, thank God. But she looks awful, trust me. Like death warmed over."

Christian snickered. "You would know about that, being a witch and all."

Mazie eyes him and suddenly realized how easily their friendship had taken off. More than that, she trusted him with this information. That epiphany warmed up her insides faster than the flames. "Ha-ha, so funny," she doled sarcastically. "So anyways, I was trying to get it out of her what stuff she's on and how it effects her. I asked about heroine but she acted like I was crazy for mentioning that."

Christian nodded. "From my understanding, this stuff is as addiction though."

"She said it has lots of different forms, and she talked about it like she had probably done it all. Then she said it makes her sleepy and nauseous at first but if you push through, then it gets better."